This is a poem I wrote about my daughter's experiences
at our local Waldorf School. Her experiences, and the
effect is has had upon her and the rest of the family, are what has promted me to create this website.

My motive in telling this story is not to discredit the
school. It is simply that I and my daughter have a need to be heard. I also feel I have an obligation to inform prospective
Waldorf parents of what can happen.

Of course
bullying and other bad experiences happen in all schools, but many people feel that the way Waldorf schools are organized,
for example, with no one person taking responsibility when things go wrong, and no past records of pupils being
kept, makes them particularly vulnerable to problems like the ones we experienced. It can certainly cause inconsistancy in
the way the schools are run.

I have also been told that some Waldorf teachers believe that bullying should not be
interfered with, that the children should be left to resolve these problems between themselves, that they are "working through
their Karma". If this is true, I feel that parents should be informed of this policy when they first approach the school.

I would like to see much more information given to prospective
parents about the schools' aims, beliefs and practices, such as the fact that they are very reluctant to call in outside agencies
like educational psychologists. This was refused to me for two of my children, both of whom have subsequently suffered from
not receiving early help for their dyslexia .

What happened to Joanna and her brothers cannot
be undone, but we would like to feel that our family's suffering has not been in vain.

Schools are created by adults to
teach children, but sometimes the children have important lesson to teach us.

When we first visited the Waldorf School, it was the day of the Summer Fair. The school
had been founded the year before by a group of parents and teachers who, until then had been holding a kindergarten in a church
hall. It had been the village school until it had been closed by the local council.

It was in a beautiful setting,
nestling at the foot of a range of hills, surrounded by fields of crops and sheep. We were enchanted.

I had had a
lot of problems around education in my own life, and I wanted the best for my young son. I wanted his creative side to be
nutured, as mine had not been in a highly academic school. And I did not want the stress of comptetion which I believed set
people against each other. I was something of an idealist.

The school looked so attractive that day. Little children
were running around with butterflies painted on their cheeks. There was folk music in the playground and delicious wholesome
food, and everyone was very friendly.

We thought we had found the perfect place to educate our children
but, unfortunately, this is not a success story.

My eldest son, who has an IQ in the gifted range is
now doing a menial job because he was unable to cope with GCSEs at college.

My younger son left the Waldorf school at 13 and was unable to settle at
a state high school because he found the work so difficult. In the end I had to home educate him.

My daughter's story is the saddest of all. After leaving the Waldorf school she
attended six different educational institutions before sinking into chronic depression. She rarely goes out, and
suffers with anxiety, social phobia and sleep problems.

The school would probably claim that our children had problems and that these things
or worse would have happened wherever they went to school. No one can be certain, but I do know of a lot of other people whose
children attended Waldorf Schools and who have had similar problems.

I want to tell our story. I will try to stick to the facts and not get too emotional,
then whoever reads this can judge for themselves.

Waldorf Education and ADHD

Three years after our family left the Waldorf school our daughter was diagnosed with ADHD. This may explain
the severity of some of her problems. The condition makes her highly sensitive and this probably made her a
magnet for bullying. It also meant she had difficulty with concentrating and sitting still during lessons.

However, it doesn't change her story. She may have been more vulnerable to bullying than the average child,
but the school made no attempt to resolve this, in fact on one occasion a teacher told me that 'She asked for it.'
She may have been difficult in class, but was her teacher's response, to make her stand in the corner for rest of the
lesson, an appropriate one? The school also refused to allow her psychiatrist to observe her in class which may have helped
to get her diagnosed. The school's opinion was always that Joanna's behaviour was because she was emotionally disturbed
because of problems in her home life.

I am now very worried that some Waldorf schools, are saying that Steiner education is especially
good for ADHD children. While I agree that the structured day of the Kindergarten did suit Joanna well, once in Class 1 the
Steiner system, in retrospect, was most unsuitable. The 2 hour main lesson must have seemed like torture to her.

Most importantly, my daughter was asked to leave because of her behaviour. Some of it may well have been due
to her ADHD and a lot to the reaction of the other pupils to her ADHD and the fact that the teacher could not cope with her.
I am amazed that, in spite of this, Waldorf schools, including the one our family attended, are claiming to be especially
suited to ADHD children. At least one other ADHD child was asked to leave this school. It seems they are not good at coping
with this special need. I would have hoped that at least they had learned this, but it seems that is not the case.

ADHD children are particularly bad at coping with rejection. Schools should never go out of their way to
attract them unless they are as sure as they can be of their commitment to the child and of their ability to meet their needs.
The Waldorf school Joanna attended was totally unable to meet her needs. She went on to an ordinary village primary where
they did cope. Even though she was still undiagnosed they helped her immensely and never felt the need to blame us or to call
her emotionally disturbed.

I talk several times, in my story, about the Waldorf Survivors internet support group.